The Emma Harte 7-Book Collection: A Woman of Substance, Hold the Dream, To Be the Best, Emma’s Secret, Unexpected Blessings, Just Rewards, Breaking the Rules

‘Frank, lad, whatever do yer think yer doing!’ she cried when she reached the boy, her eyes widening in surprise, her head bobbing from side to side in her excitement. ‘Lathering that dripping on like there’s no termorrow!’ She grabbed the knife from the startled boy’s hand and, clucking in mild irritation, she began to scrape some of the dripping off the bread. These scrapings she thriftily returned to the brown stone jar that stood on the wooden chopping board which covered the set pot opening. ‘We’re not gentry yet, our Frank,’ she went on, and expertly finished making the sandwiches herself, folding the bread cakes over and cutting them in half decisively and with a little flourish.

Frank shrank from Emma, his lower lip trembling, his hazel eyes brimming with hot tears, his small face pinched and scared. Frank was twelve and small for his age. He had a head of fair hair as soft as duck’s down, a milky skin, and a gentle face, almost girlish in its prettiness. Much to his humiliation, his sweet appearance had earned him the nicknames of ‘Sissy’ and ‘Nancy’ at the Fairley mill, where he worked as a bobbin ligger. Under Winston’s expert tuition he had learned to fight back with his fists, but his preference was to walk away from the taunts and jibes, his head held high, ignoring them. And that was the way he would be all of his life, always sensitive and thin-skinned, but capable of turning the other cheek, proudly and with disdain.

His fair hair fell over his eyes and he pushed it away nervously, turning pathetically to Winston, his defender, who had just finished washing at the sink. ‘I didn’t mean no harm, Winston,’ he said, and the tears slid down his freckled cheeks.

Winston had witnessed this scene at first with astonishment and then with amusement, aware that Emma’s brisk manner was her way of reasserting her motherly authority over them, and also of restoring their usual morning routine. He knew that her clucking and spluttering about the dripping was harmless. He put down the towel he had been using and pulled the younger boy to him, holding him comfortingly in the crook of his arm.

‘Well, I’ll go ter hell and back!’ he exclaimed, feigning horror, as he addressed his father. He bit his lip to hide a smile and continued, ‘I never thought I’d live ter see the day our Emma turned inter a nip scrape. I think some of old man Fairley’s habits have rubbed off on yon lass.’ He spoke mildly, all the hostility washed out of his eyes.

Emma whirled on them, her face flushed in the firelight that blazed up the chimney and filled her hair full of golden lights. She brandished the knife before her. ‘That’s not fair! I’m not a nip scrape! Am I, Dad?’ she appealed, and rushed on breathlessly before he could answer, ‘Anyway, old man Fairley’s that well off he’s bowlegged with brass and do yer know why? Because he wouldn’t nip a currant in two and give yer half. So there!’ She spoke heatedly, although not with anger, and there was an embarrassed expression on her crimson face. Winston knew his teasing had hit its mark, for Emma loathed stinginess and it was the worst accusation anyone could level at her, even in jest.

Bridling and tossing her head, she said huffily, ‘That dripping was two inches thick. Yer couldn’t have eaten them sandwiches. Yer would’ve been sick, that yer would.’

Winston started to laugh, unable to suppress his amusement any longer. Jack threw him a startled glance, his thick black brows puckering together in a jagged line across his brow as he gazed at the boy mystified. But he saw at once that Winston’s laughter was not malicious and he saw, too, Emma’s increasing confusion and humiliation. As he looked from one to the other the boy’s mirth infected him. He chuckled and slapped his knee.

Emma glared at them and slowly a sheepish grin spread itself across her face. She was laughing herself. ‘What a fuss over a ha’porth of dripping,’ she muttered through her laughter, shaking her head as she put down the knife. Frank looked in bewilderment at them all, at first uncomprehending, and as he realized their merriment was real he laughed, too, wiping away his tears on the sleeve of his grey shirt. Emma hugged him to her. ‘Don’t take on so, Frank luv. I meant no harm, yer silly duck nut. And don’t wipe yer nose on yer sleeve,’ she scolded gruffly as she stroked back his hair and kissed the top of his head with tenderness.

A feeling of friendliness and genuine family affection was miraculously restored. Emma sighed with relief and began her managerial bustling again. ‘We’ll all have ter look sharp and get a move on, or we’ll be late for work,’ she cried, catching sight of the clock on the mantel. It had just turned a quarter to five and her father and Winston had to leave at five o’clock to reach the brickyard by six, when they had to clock in. She felt the teapot under the cosy. The pot was still hot. ‘Come on, Frank, take this tea up ter our mam for me,’ she said, pouring tea into a mug and adding generous portions of milk and sugar. ‘And, Dad, mend the fire for me, will yer, please. Bank it up so that it lasts till me Aunt Lily comes in. And, Winston, wash the pots whilst I finish making yer jock. And, Dad, don’t forget the fireguard.’

She handed the mug of tea to Frank. ‘And ask me mam if she wants some bread and jam, and hurry up about it, me lad, there’s still a lot of chores ter be done afore I go ter the Hall.’ Frank took the tea carefully in both of his small hands and hurried across the room, his boots ringing hollowly on the brick floor as he headed for the staircase. Whistling under his breath, Winston gathered the dirty mugs and plates from the table and carried them over to the sink, whilst Jack turned to the fireplace and began stacking on the logs. Emma smiled to herself. Peace was restored. She moved to the set pot and began to wrap the sandwiches in the cotton serviettes her mother had so carefully hemmed, dampening them first so that the sandwiches would stay fresh.

Jack devoted his attention to the fire, interspersing the logs with treasured pieces of coal and then heaping on coal dust so that the fire would last until his sister Lily came in to tend to Elizabeth later in the morning. As he swung his great body around to reach for the fireguard he glanced surreptitiously at Winston, who was mechanically washing the pots at the kitchen sink. He regretted his outburst of anger earlier. There was no deep-rooted hatred between them, only this irritation that was increasingly difficult to repress in them both. He did not even blame the boy for wanting to leave Fairley; nevertheless, he could not permit him to go. Dr Malcolm had said nothing specific about Elizabeth’s health, but Jack did not require a medical opinion to confirm what he already suspected. She was dying. Winston’s departure at this time would be the last nail in her coffin. He was her favourite child. She loved all of her children, but Winston was special, being the eldest and so like her in looks. Jack dare not let him leave and yet he could not tell the boy his reasons. ‘And he always picks the wrong time ter discuss it,’ Jack muttered to himself as he put the fireguard around the grate. He rested for a moment against the guard, staring into the fire, blinded by searing grief and overwhelming despair. It was grief for Elizabeth, who had been so brutalized by life, despair for his young children, who would be motherless before the last of the snows melted into spring.

He felt a light touch on his arm and he knew it was Emma. He swallowed hard, his throat constricted. He coughed hoarsely and straightened himself to his full height, attempting a smile. ‘Yes, luv, what is it?’

‘Yer’ll be late, Dad. Yer best go and see me mam now, afore yer leave.’

‘Aye, lass. I’ll just wash this coal dust off me hands.’ Jack moved to the sink, where Winston was drying the pots. ‘Go up and see thee mam, lad, and I’ll be up in a minute. Thee knows how upset she gets if we don’t all see her afore we leaves.’ Winston nodded, wiped the last of the mugs quickly, and left the kitchen, still nervously whistling between his teeth.

Jack looked over at Emma, who was standing at the set pot, the tea caddy in her hands. She was measuring out their mashings of tea and sugar into small pieces of paper, screwing the ends together securely so nothing would be spilled. ‘Thee’ll be catching thee death in that nightgown, Emma, and there’s no warmth in that shawl. Thee best get dressed lass, now everything’s in order down here.’

‘Yes, I will, Dad. I’ve finished putting up yer mashings,’ she said with a sunny smile that illuminated her serious face with sudden radiance. Her eyes, so unusually deep and vividly green, were bright and shining, and Jack knew that her affection for him was intact. She ran across the kitchen to her father. He was smiling down at her. Emma stood on tiptoe and, putting her thin arms around his neck, she pulled his face down to hers. She kissed his cheek and said, ‘I’ll see yer next Saturday, Dad.’ Jack held her for a brief moment longer, his sinewy arms tightening around her protectively as a surge of tenderness swept through him. ‘Aye, luv, and take care of theeself up yonder at the Hall,’ he mumbled in a tight voice. She was gone before he could catch his breath, slipping out of his arms and streaking across the room like a flash of lightning, and Jack was alone in the kitchen.

He sighed and reached for his coat on the peg behind the door. He felt around in the pockets for the small leather straps he fastened around his corduroy trousers to prevent the dust from the bricks rising up his legs. He sat down at the table and buckled them on, wondering as he did whether he should tell Elizabeth he had given in his notice at the brickyard. He frowned, his large hands expertly tightening the straps until he had just the right pressure. It had been a hard decision for Jack to make, since jobs were scarce and so many men were out of work, and also he liked working in the fresh air, even though slinging wet clay up on to a gantry for ten hours a day was killing work for any man. He did not object to the hard work, he did object to the pay it brought him and he had said so to Stan, the gaffer, last Friday. ‘Eighteen shillings and tenpence is nowt much ter take home at the end of the week, Stan. And me a married man with three kids. I’m not blaming me kids on anybody but meself, mind thee, but bloody old man Fairley’s paying starvation wages. That he is, Stan, and thee knows it,’ he had said with a quiet vehemence.

Stan had shaken his head, and even though he had spoken with some sympathy he had not been able to meet Jack’s fixed stare. ‘Aye, Jack, there’s summat in what thee says. It’s a bloody crime, it is. But there’s gaffers walking around that only get twenty bob a week. I don’t get much more meself. Nowt I can do about it, though. Take it or leave it, lad.’ He had told Stan he would leave it, in no uncertain terms, and he had reluctantly gone to the Fairley mill on Saturday morning, cap in hand, swallowing his pride. He had seen Eddie, the foreman, his friend since boyhood, who had signed him on to start in a week’s time at twenty shillings a week, which was an improvement if not much of one. He pondered the question of telling Elizabeth and abruptly decided against it. She knew he loathed mill work and it would only grieve her and aggravate her condition. No, he would not tell her until he was already working at the mill next week. He had one consolation, small though it was. The mill was down at the bottom of the village, in the valley on the banks of the river Aire, and it was only ten minutes away from the cottage. He was close at hand if Elizabeth needed him, if there was an emergency, and this thought cheered him so enormously it made the mill work seem that much less unpalatable to him.

The church clock in the village struck five and he sprang up, striding across the room swiftly with that easy grace many tall men have quite unconsciously. He took the stairs two at a time, his hobnail boots hitting the stone steps with a harsh metallic ring that was an oddly mournful echo in the silence of the cottage.

Emma was dressed and standing with Winston and Frank by the side of the bed. They seemed a woebegone little trio in their drab and shabby clothes, which were also patched and darned. But these clothes were scrupulously clean and neat, as they were themselves with their scrubbed faces and carefully combed hair. And each child, as disparate as they were in appearance, had a sort of refinement that stood out so strikingly that those poor, threadbare garments became insignificant. They had a curious dignity as they stood there so solemn-faced and quiet. The children parted and stepped back to make way for Jack as he bounded into the room, bristling with energy, a cheerful smile carefully arranged on his face.

Elizabeth lay back against the mound of pillows, pale and piteously depleted, but the feverish glaze on her face had vanished and she appeared more tranquil. Emma had washed her face and brushed her hair, and the blue shawl she had wrapped around her mother’s shoulders intensified the blueness of Elizabeth’s uncommonly lovely eyes; her hair fanned out across the pillows like skeins of soft spun silk. Not a spot of colour stained the whiteness of her face and to Jack, in the candlelight, it was like the carved ivory he had seen in Africa, the contours and planes sharp and finely chiselled, devoid of any crudity of form. She had the appearance of a small and very delicate figurine. Her face lit up when she saw Jack. She stretched out her thin arms weakly towards him and when he reached the bed he pulled her to him almost fiercely, holding her feeble body against his own strong virile one as if to never let her go.

‘Thee looks worlds better, Elizabeth luv,’ he said in a voice so gentle it seemed to stroke the air delicately. And it was hardly recognizable as his own.

‘I am, John,’ she asserted bravely. ‘I’ll be up tonight when yer gets home, and I’ll have a good sheep’s-head broth boiling for yer, luv, and dumplings, too, and fresh bread cakes.’

He released her tenderly and placed her back on the pillows, and as he gazed at that pitifully wasted face he did not see it as it truly was at all. He saw only the beautiful girl he had known all of his life. She looked at him with such trust and adoration his heart clenched with sorrow and there was nothing he could do to save her. And that strange impulse came over him again, an impulse which was occurring with increasing frequency and compelling urgency, in reality a compulsion to pick her up bodily in his arms and take her out of this mean room and run with her to the top of the moors, which she longed for always. There on the high fells the air was pure and bracing and the sky was a vast reflection of her eyes, and he felt in some inexplicable and mysterious way that on that high ground this disease would be blown out of her, that she would be miraculously revived and filled with life.

But the lavender tints and pale vaporous mists of the long summer days were now swept away by northern gales. If only it was summer he would take her up there, the Top of the World she called it, and he would lay her down against a knoll of heather amongst green ferns and tender young bilberry leaves, and they would sit together in contentment in the shelter of Ramsden Crags, warmed by the sun, alone except for the linnets and larks fluttering by in the hazy golden light. It was not possible. The earth was hard with black February frost and the sweeping moorland was savage and desolate under a sky bleak and rain-filled.

‘John luv, did yer hear what I said? I’ll be up tonight and we can all have our suppers together, in front of the fire, like we used ter afore I was sick.’ There was a new vividness in Elizabeth’s voice, an excitement unquestionably created by Jack’s presence.

‘Thee mustn’t get out of bed, luv,’ he cautioned hoarsely. ‘Doctor says thee must have complete rest, Elizabeth. Our Lily will come in later and tend to thee, and make the supper for us. Now thee must promise me thee won’t do owt foolish, lass. Now promise me.’

‘Oh, yer do fret so, John Harte. But I promise, if that’s what pleases yer. I’ll stay abed.’

He leaned forward so that only she could hear. ‘I love thee, Elizabeth, I do that,’ he whispered.

She looked deeply into his eyes and she saw that love so clearly reflected, changeless and everlasting, and she said, ‘I love thee, too, John, till the day I die and even after that.’

He kissed her quickly, hardly daring to look at her again, and as he got up off the bed his movements were jerky and disjointed, almost as if he had relinquished command of his great body. He crossed the bedroom in three quick strides. ‘Come on, Winston, kiss thee mam and let’s be off. We’re running late, lad,’ he called brusquely.

Winston and Frank each kissed their mother and moved away from the bed to the door with the utmost quiet. Winston had not addressed a remark to Emma since his teasing in the kitchen earlier, and now he gave her one of his most charming and breezy smiles, and said from the top of the stairs. ‘See yer Saturday, Emma. Ta’rar, luv.’

She waved and smiled. ‘Ta’rar, Winston,’ adding as an afterthought, ‘Frank, yer’d best finish getting ready for work. I’ll be down right sharpish and we can leave together.’ Frank nodded, his little head bobbing up and down, his pale face serious. ‘Yes, Emma,’ he cried, and clattered noisily down the steps after Winston.

Emma sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Do yer need owt afore I go, Mam?’

Elizabeth shook her head. ‘The tea was good, luv. It’s all I need till yer Aunt Lily comes, and I’m not hungry.’

She’s never hungry. How will she ever be well if she never eats? Emma asked herself, and said with a cheerfulness she did not feel, ‘All right, Mam, but yer must eat the food me Aunt Lily brings when she comes. Yer must keep up yer strength.’

Elizabeth smiled faintly. ‘I will, luv.’

‘Shall I blow out the candle?’ Emma asked, preparing to leave.

Elizabeth looked lovingly at the girl. ‘Aye, yer can when yer go. I’ll rest a while. Yer a good lass, Emma. I don’t know what I’d do without yer. Now get yerself off ter the Hall. I don’t want yer ter be late, when Mrs Turner let yer come home ter see me in the middle of the week. And be a good lass. Mrs Fairley’s a real lady, that she is.’

‘Yes, Mam,’ Emma whispered, blinking back the tears. She kissed her mother with great tenderness and rearranged the bedclothes, patting the pillows and straightening the sheet and quilt with her usual efficiency. As she pulled the bedclothes up around Elizabeth she said, ‘I’ll try and find a sprig of heather on me way home on Saturday, Mam. Perhaps there’s a bit the frost didn’t get, under the crags.’

CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_2bbf9b58-4399-5efd-8035-da7023679b29)

Jack and Winston had gone to the brickyard and Frank was alone in the kitchen, which was now dimly lit, for Jack had turned out the paraffin lamp as he always did when he left for work. The only illumination came from a candle on the table and the fire, which occasionally flared and momentarily filled the room with a sudden lambent light. Dusky shadows lurked eerily on the perimeters of the kitchen and the air was hushed, except for the intermittent crackling of the logs, which hissed and spurted from time to time.

Frank sat in one of the high-backed chairs by the fireside and the chair dwarfed him, so enormous was it, and he appeared much smaller and more fragile than he actually was. The boy was smallboned and delicate, yet for all that he was surprisingly wiry and tough, like a little terrier.

This morning he seemed forlorn in his grey work shirt and baggy trousers, hand-me-downs from Winston, and his legs in their carefully darned grey socks, dangling over the edge of the chair, looked pathetic and far too weak to lift the great boots, which were too large and ugly and had also once belonged to Winston. But in reality, and in spite of his appearance, there was nothing forlorn about Frank Harte, for he occupied an inner world so filled with beautiful images and soaring dreams and expectations, it made his day-to-day existence seem totally inconsequential. And this perfect world protected him from the harshness of their poverty-stricken life, nourished him so completely he was, for the most part, quite oblivious to the deprivations and spartan conditions in which they lived.

Essentially Frank was a happy little boy, content to retreat into his imagination, one that was vivid and fertile, and the only time he had been truly dismayed and saddened was when he had left the church school in the village last summer. It was with a degree of resignation that he had stoically accepted the fact that he had to work in the mill with the other young boys, collecting empty yarn bobbins. His father had told him regretfully yet firmly that they needed the few shillings he would bring home every week and so he had left school when he had reached twelve years. He had been an astonishingly acute and avid pupil, soaking up knowledge with a rapidity and understanding that had utterly amazed the teacher. She thought he was unique and was distressed to discover his fate was to be the mill. She knew he was capable of so much more if only he was given the chance; she also knew he was doomed by the circumstances of his birth.

Although Frank no longer went to school, he continued his studies as best he could on his own. He read and reread the meagre collection of threadbare books his mother owned and anything else he could get his hands on. Words were somehow awesome and yet magical to Frank, and he loved them with a deep intensity that bordered on veneration. He would form and re-form sentences in his head and continually wrote little snatches of prose on the precious bits of paper that Emma brought home for him from the Hall. He was constantly caught up in abstract ideas, although he did not yet comprehend they were abstract ideas, and these ideas puzzled and challenged him. For Frank Harte had a truly genuine intellect, one that was to develop with great brilliance later in his life.

Now he sat staring steadily into the fire, a mug of tea in his small hands, a rapt expression on his face, and his eyes, so dreamy and faraway, saw endless and incredible visions amongst the flickering flames.

The door creaked and startled him and he lifted his head sharply and looked about. Emma came into the room, silent and preoccupied. Frank began to sip his tea, his hazel eyes peering over the rim of the mug, following her progress around the room. She stopped at the window, moved the curtain, and, looking out, said, without turning to him, ‘It’s still dark outside, but we don’t have ter leave just yet. We can wait a bit longer until it’s lighter and I’ll run part of the way ter the Hall, so I won’t be late.’

Frank put the mug down on the hearth and said, ‘Me dad filled the teapot with hot water and he told me ter make yer a sandwich. It’s there, on the set pot.’